Blacktail Deer Plateau With the evening sun

Ash moved slowly through the plateau. Blue eyes alighting on all the different areas of her home. A sadness curled around her, and yet there was a sense of contentment too. There were changes happening in her body and in the world around her. The evening sun fell across her face, and she went in search of solace, finding it near the altars of Atka and Sos.

She briefly thought of @Ingram and though there was still a small bit of anger and betrayal burning in her gullet. She knew that if they went in separate directions she would want them to leave on at least neutral terms. She didn't know if there was a place for her in Akashingo. Toula was a good girl, sweet girl, but Ash knew well. She was pregnant with a man who didn't belong in Shingo. 

She didn't know what her future held, but for now she was happy to just sit.

ingram seeks ash paw.

he had intended not to, to let the past be the buried past and follow the deathlord osiris, clearly in ingram's mind working thru toula to akashingo.

but something urges him to seek her all the same.

loyal, despite all the ups and downs she has endured: many at his own paws.

ash paw. he almost calls her mage upon his approach, but as basilica was little more than rubble in ruins he does not.

Colored ear twitches and blue eyes turn towards the dreadfather, Ingram. Her friend. Even if despite it all they have a strange friendship. But it was one that she held dear regardless of their serious issues. Perhaps it was simply that the two were both too prideful to let any small thing go.

Hello. You are to go to Akashingo with princess Toula?

She stretched, her body aching where the children liked to lay. She hadn't felt them quicken yet, but she knew was only a matter of time. She did have ot admit she was rather off kilter, and her body was strange to her, she felt like a stuffed creature.

a brief moment of confusion flashes across his face before it smooths out with the only logical conclusion ingram could come to: toula has already spoken to her.

yet, the girl has yet to call him to leave. so, perhaps her and her attendant will still gathering their things.

yes. rumbles ingram. you are not? a question spoken as more of a statement. the way she worded it was answer enough. perhaps it is time to turn from the daedra.

it was a heavy conclusion: that meant more than what he spoke.

I will go yes. But I am unsure if they would allow me entry. After all, not many places would allow a pregnant wolf and I cannot blame them.

Ash Paw was preparing herself for this reality. And it was her own choices that had gotten her into this. She could have hidden away. Supression would have been unavailable, but she could have hid. No she was fine with her current state.

Ash Paw looked at him and frowned. You will follow Osiris? Or Amun Ra? Or any other egyptian god?

a thousand arguments burn to the tip of ingram's tongue: that it wasn't fair to run with that assumption, that it wasn't her fault basilica had fallen; but he bites each of them back.

because he knows she is right.

her children were supposed to be the future of basilica and now ...they were the future of whatever pack took her beneath their wing.

a not-so twist of fate. it wasn't as if ingram hadn't concluded this was coming even before the murky affirmation from his threadbones.

maybe, ingram rumbles; contemplative. the deathlord, osiris. for that was where the violent tug of his obsession was leading him and he, ever prone to following it, was a puppet upon strings.

Ash Paw knew that there was chance that she was wrong. However, she doubted it. With so many wolves in the teekon wilds. She imagined most packs would secure their futures with pups. It just so happened that her's didn't. Not that they hadn't tried, it was just not enough.

She gave him a small smile. I can see you as a follower of Osiris. Sithis fits well with his ideals.

Blue eyes looked him over and she offered him a sad smile. For what it's worth I will miss you Ingram if I cannot stay in Akashingo.

She shifted and ruffled her fur. I like the god Tawaley I believe it is. The Egyptian goddess of childbirth, family and midwifery.

for the most part, ingram agrees in a low, rumbling murmur. there were differences between osiris and sithis that were stark enough to push the two deathgods into different tiers.

holding onto sithis hadn't made his nightwife stay, hadn't made her love him with the devotion that he loved her, holding onto the hope time and time again that she would stay.

that he would be enough.

in this truth, ingram sees why he was so desperate to leave behind the daedra and the life he'd built 'round them.

he was so ready to start anew: in all aspects.

and osiris offered that fresh start; gleaming like the golden scales he weighed the heart and the feather with.

her word of missing him draws ingram from his thoughts and draws a small, startled laugh from him. it's ok if you don't miss me, ingram teases. if you don't stay with akashingo ...don't be a stranger ash paw. i need your back talking to keep me humble.

though he imagines, if the pharaoh and his queen allows even ingram to stay that he would be at the bottom of the hierarchy understandably.

that does not surprise me, a soft twitch of his lips into something akin to a smirking smile tugs at the corners of ingram's lips.

Perhaps a new beginning is what we all need.

Ash Paw knew much about many gods, and she knew their differences. She collected the knowledge of them. It made her happy to do so. She didn't know everything and every single god or goddess, but she was wiling to learn. Even if it was just to help guide someone towards a deity. She would always be loyal to Atka and Sos, but she understood not everyone believed in them. However hard that lesson was to learn. 

She raised her head prideful, haughty, but a smile glittered there. If you weren't so stubborn you know. I wouldn't need to keep you humble, but don't you worry. I will plague you until my dying day.

A laugh drew from her lips and she shook her head. There would be no easy departing. It would be hard to go away from the one constant that had been in her life since she came to the Teekon woods. The only absolute concrete wolf that had always been. Even Syrax whom she had dose of affection for, came and went. Sanguinex the father of her pups was not even really her friend. He had stoked a fire and helped to get her towards what she wanted. They got along, but she imagined he would leave and she wouldn't see him again, except fleeting.

when one path collapses, another opens. it was a terribly cliche thing to say, feels silly upon silveredtongue but ingram finds it irrevocably true. and if one doesn't: you make your own. this, ingram finds himself good at doing, despite that for much of his almost two years of life he has been content to be a follower. that did not, it seems, mean he was not a forger.

the end was never the end he was keen to believe: even in death.

though that belief does not particularly bode well for the committer of matricide.

surprisingly, i find that to be a relief. ingram admits with a cheeky grin tugging at the edges of his lips.

A small chuckle. He was right and if anyone knew how to forge their own trail, it was most certainly Ingram, once dreadfather, once Sithis. Now Ingram again. A small pain tightened her chest that he would go on this journey alone. 

Much like him, she had been a constant and his nightwife always left him. It was one of the many reasons that she had forgiven him. Despite how awful he was during her brief lapse of judgement during heat. She had no right to even attempt to ask Dreadfather to fix what had ailed her. 

Ash Paw laughed again. And tilted her head, blue eyes narrowing to slits in her joy. Don't make anyone too angry. She teased him.

don't make anyone too angry.

it feels like goodbye, this.

there was a good chance their paths would sever and circumstances would keep them apart. for a strange moment, there is a tug in his chest that felt like he was missing her already. motherhood would bog her down and the uncertainty of his own path, of what the deathgod osiris would demand of him he couldn't — and wouldn't — make promises.

no promises. ingram tells her; grin razor sharp and brimming with mischievousness.

Ash Paw looked him over and stood with a gentle stretch. She pressed a paw against one of his and spoke. 

let's promise to meet up in spring, near the plateau. Just to see how the other is doing yes?

SHe knew motherhood would come and it would bring to her a new busyness she wouldn't be used too, but she relished the challenge. But she would make time for her friend. It only felt just. He had been such a big part of her life up to this point.

A small laugh and she shook her head at him, touching a paw to her nose. Yes she understood.

the touch of her paw against his own startles ingram for a moment but he does not pull away. sithis had been drowned by the deathlord osiris and dreadfather had been left to wilt like a neglected flower. ironic, how it had taken almost no time at all. perhaps, ingram considers, this had always been the endgame of that arc. perhaps dreadfather had been dying for some time.

though there is a small ache in his chest for what he turns his back to: his once nightwife at the forefront of his mind, he also reassures himself that waiting for her, waiting for her to stay, for him to be enough for her was not being fair to himself at all.

providing you can get away from your cubs: sounds like a plan. ingram vows in a low stormy rumble; offering a pause before adding, providing akashingo takes me in ...you could always send a messenger to tell me where you are. i could come to you, too. he, who would not be bogged down with offspring could make treks more freely than her.

he didn't remove himself this time, but she could see just as he could. That they would be apart for some time, and though she was not his nightwife and they had nothing, but friendship. It was still a friendship of closeness. She believed anyway.

I will do that then. You should be there when they are born. I will be unable to pray to the gods then. I would like you too, it doesn't not have to be mine. She chuckled. She understood. She could make her own prayers for her own children after she was not tired with mother's birth.

having a plan, to ingram, seems better than just wandering 'round random neutral territories close to the plateau in the hopes that their paths might cross. easier, too, providing that he is accepted and stays in akashingo — but everything was so uncertain.

the path ahead was murky with only one sliver of certainty: that he would see princess toula safely home.

the news that she wanted him present for the birth of her children brings with it some surprise that ingram does not bother to hide. he was not their father, nor even a possible father.

a small catch of his breath as a thousand what if's move like a force of nature 'round his mind.

he pushes them down.

he was the patronsaint. speaker to the gods, the vessel between the would-be new mother and gods in her laboring. i will. a smoke steeped whiskey rumble of a vow: one that he would move mountains to keep. for her. for her cubs.

Ash Paw liked plans. When she had arrived here, there had been none and though she had thought she may like the uncertainty, she had in fact hated it. Hatever every thing about it. She took a deep breath and smiled up at him. 

She met his gaze with her blue eyes, a rare vulnerability there. It's not just that reason. My pups, belong to you as much as me, as much as Sanguinex and even Syrax. Just as I belonged to the plateau, to Basilica. And you are the only one left. You have been the one constant in my life since I arrived here, haughty, proud and disillusioned. I want you to have that honor and if you so wish it, direct parentage over them.

They didn't belong to just her. She had always planned to raise her children under the thought that all the wolves of Basilica were father's and mothers and aunts and waht have you. She had meant it when she said they belonged to it, as she had.

ingram's gaze meets ash paw's own noting the vulnerability written there; unhidden.

the only one left...

the iron keeper. the stalwart sentry.

in the end, that was how each arc ended and each new one began: but he is not alone this time. he was all she had left, or so she believes. argument ignites upon his tongue, wanting to break the breach of his lips, to tell her that she didn't know that. that maybe the deathbringer would find her.

but he wasn't here.

the spark of argument dies, stifled before it could even leave ingram's tongue.

direct parentage ... to be the father they knew, even though he is not blood.

how they would manage that, especially if they ended up in separate packs ... there are many and more questions in ingram's mind. they had time to figure it out, though.

not much, but some time was better than none.

then i shall be their father. throat tightens at the words, emotions unbidden rise to swell there; catching.

Such growth for these two. <3

She knew there maybe more that came and went in her life. There was no mistaken that. She was a wolf that lived each moment as it came. She did not make many future plans for herself. For others sure, but she was a healer. She healed. She was a spiritualist. She listened to the prays of many and passed them onto the gods and goddesses of their choices.

She nodded. Good. We will figure out the rest in time. There is some.

There was not much, she was certain. They would be here before she even knew it. But she would whisper to them the names of those from Basilica, she would tell them who they belonged to by blood and bone and spirit. She would share them with the one who infuriated her and calmed her.

i know.

a noncommittal noise of agreement is given. they would figure it out. a shift of his weight, a deep inhale of breath. lingering would not change what needed to happen, would not resurrect basilica. it was dead and gone and ingram is content to let it rest.

i should check on toula. make sure she and her attendant are ready to go. it was a way of saying goodbye without actually uttering the words he cannot bring himself to say.

He gave his agreement in however strangea  way. A shift of him, a movement. Deep breaths. She knew what was coming and though she hated the thought, she also knew that good things would happen soon enough.

Safe travels Ingram. Then Ash Paw stood on petite paws, waiting a moment ot adjust the wide load she now carried and then gave a soft nod and was off towards her den. She would sleep. She would travel with them, but she wouldn't stay. She was not fool enough to believe she'd be taken into Akashingo. Really waht pack would take her, but she wasn't going to say that.